


Scarier Things

by starkraving



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, always low key consent warnings, because Damien's power is literally always there, crossover if you pay attention, fucking with that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 15:18:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9554780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkraving/pseuds/starkraving
Summary: Hiatus AU: Mark drags Damien back across the country in what amounts to the most karmic reverse kidnapping in history, but stopping to take hipster pics of scenic overlooks will not protect you from the scary stuff lurking in the liminal space behind highway truck-stops.





	

Damien stopped talking as soon as they got in the car and started driving.

That was almost twenty-four hours ago.

Mark Bryant – age twenty-eight, atypical mimic, fugitive, and uproariously done with this guy’s shit – does not give a single damn. (He doesn’t. Fuck you. He doesn’t care.) Mark has static under his skin, buzzing between the bones of his skull and the muscles in his face. Somewhere in the subcutaneous sinews, humming in the roots of his teeth. (That’s probably bad. Tastes like rage. Feels like he’s on the razor’s edge of bursting into… tears maybe. Or violence. Or a Ramone’s song. Something big and loud and…)

He turns up the volume on the radio.

Mark was (is) riding the high of victory. (He is!) He’s won. He’s in control. He’s going to see Joanie! He’s pulled over to pet at least three dogs and take pictures of whatever scenic overlook he wants. He has a souvenir bobble-head stuck to the dashboard, a disposable camera in his pocket, and nothing can stop him now. Not time, not distance, not shadowy government agencies, and definitely not the dude in the passenger’s seat.

Damien’s curled up like a wounded animal, one knee pulled up, his arms tucked in around his ribs, staring blankly out the window at the passing freeway signs. He looks kind of sick. A perpetual nausea in the slack lines of his face. There’s something… Mark doesn’t want to say _satisfying_ about the weird gutted passivity on his former captor’s face, but he feels some kinda way about it. He’d be lying if he said there wasn’t a piece of him that... clenches a little, like a fist.

Like _fuck_ you.

Fuck you, I _win_.

But then that goes away and he just feels shitty for feeling that way.

Mark leans over, picks a water bottle from the cup holder under the dash and holds it out. When Damien doesn’t notice, he bumps the guy’s elbow with the plastic.

“Drink something.”

“I don’t want to.”

Mark _sighs_. “Don’t you?”

Damien says nothing. Then he takes the water bottle, takes a single sip, screws the cap back on and goes back to staring out the window. Mark refuses to pity this motherfucker. He goes back to watching the road. The tiny hula dancer stuck to the dashboard jiggles happily, its little grass skirt bobbing. Somehow, that helps.

Mark used to cry a lot as a kid.

He doesn’t anymore, but he does feel the impulse to cry beneath his adult sensibilities sometimes, there like a raw nerve for poking. He doesn’t poke it. He does not think about Joanie who is five states away at least. Days of driving between him and a fucking hug.

(God that sounds pathetic.)

Mark cannot articulate how much he wants to hug his big sister. He pictures it: They’re in, like, a parking lot. No. A park. It’s sunny. He’s going to sprint and tackle her. He’ll pick her up and swing her around in that way she hated when they were in high school. He imagines her punching him indignantly even though she hasn’t done that since she was sixteen. This is his familial hug fantasy and it won’t be spoiled by the fact Joan is over thirty and an adult now. By the fact they drifted. Nothing is going to spoil… to spoil…

He comes back to himself when his palms start to ache suddenly. The steering wheel creaking slightly in his white-knuckled grip and he relaxes. Breathes in. Here. Now. Breathes out. 

“I really missed having a body,” he says, because it’s not as though Damien can complain about his choices in conversation. “Like, I don’t think I can articulate how bad it was not being able to touch anything for two years. Standing around and breathing feels incredible. Do you know how weird that is? Dude. It’s so weird. I have lungs and that’s a highlight. That’s how low the bar is for me to be thrilled right now. My fingertips are blowing my mind.”

Damien says nothing. It’s vaguely petulant at this point.

Mark glances at him.

Damien’s age is a little hard to pin down, but Mark would say they’re about the same age. Damien’s a white dude… or a mostly white dude. At least half a white dude. He doesn’t look like he gets sun. Shorter than Mark. Kind of lanky. This dark moppy kind haircut that looks like it was expensive before it went to weed. Everything Damien owns looks expensive by the way. Mark noticed really fast. This is probably because he walks into high end stores and tells them to give him things for free and that just…

Mark looks at the road again.

“Look, I know you basically just kidnapped me because you wanted me to be your sidekick minion or whatever, but I don’t hate you or anything. You’re a dick, but you’re not _dangerous_. I mean… maybe you are a little, but proportional to how dangerous you could be, you’re not that bad.” Mark tries to let that stand. Fails. “I mean… I’m not giving you credit for not being as big of a bastard as you could be. I’m just saying you can talk to me if something is wrong.”

Damien drops his forehead against the passenger side window and exhales through his nose.

“Are you trying to say something? You can say something.”

Damien shakes his head once.

Mark can sense that the level and degree to which Damien’s sulking is… muted. Mark tries not to think about that. How Damien should be flipping out, should be screaming, but he’s not. Like Mark’s holding the guy’s head under water. _No_. That’s too violent. It’s like… it’s like… like he’s drunk, kind of. Thoughts murky and pliable. Yeah. Like he’s walking a drunk guy home from a bar and gently suggesting they go left. Except he’s not… he’s not always _consciously_ suggesting… Jesus it feels slimy…

“Your power is really messy,” Mark says to the silence. “I can’t think of a metaphor. I’m usually great at metaphors. Or similes! I’m good at describing other people’s powers in layman’s terms. Yours kind of defies me.”

_That_ gets Damien’s attention. He glances at Mark using just his eyes, but Mark can feel that… specific thread of heat. Interest. It always stands out. _Want_ always stands out now. Mark turns the volume down on the radio.

“I can’t tell when I’m using this thing. It’s just… it’s always on. I mean… there a definitely moments where I can feel myself trying to push something specific… but I can choose not to.” He lets that hang, pointedly, for a moment. “But it _is_ there, like, low-grade. All the time. You’ve had this since you were a kid and you never learned to turn it off completely?”

“No.”

“You ever tried? Like, really, really tried?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

“I’m not lying to you right now.”

“Oh… right. Sorry.” Mark, privately, still does not believe that Damien’s ‘try’ is the same as the average person, but he lets it go. “Anyway, it’s funny. Empaths, telepaths, Class A powers – they all dig right past everything into people’s raw unfiltered _stuff_ and it’s still possible to feel like people are incomprehensible. You physically cannot lie to me right now and I still… can’t trust anything you say. It’s like talking to someone under the influence. So… it’s like a lot of telepathy in that way, actually. It’s weird, but not totally off the beaten path for Class A abilities.”

Damien mutters something.

“What was that?”

“So… do you think it could be more common?”

“Well, I’ve told you before that I’ve never met anyone else with your ability. Class A powers are a pretty limited set and mind control is… well, it’s not _possible_ according to the AM. Manipulation, mental suggestion, tricks… sure, but all that requires trickery and social manipulation too. Like mentally screaming in someone’s head to buy you a coffee will probably work, but not because you actually changed their mind. You… you definitely get in there move things around without notice sometimes.”

Damien stares out the window for a moment before rejoining. “Doctor Bright said I was a low level manipulator.”

“I mean, _technically_. I don’t think you could convince someone to kill themselves.” A beat. “Uh, right?”

“No. I can’t do that.”

“You _tried_ it?”

“No. When I was fifteen fell off a pier. I couldn’t swim so I panicked and called out to a man on the dock to dive in and help me but… he couldn’t swim either. He knew he would die if he did so he just stood there.” Damien shrugged. “I can’t make someone choose me over their own safety. Not if they know the danger.”

Mark grimaces. “That must have been scary.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you swim now?”

“No.”

“What? Really?”

Damien just shrugs again. “Yeah. I’m scared of deep water actually. S’why I don’t travel much. Gotta go over oceans.”

“So you almost drowned once… so you just avoid water now?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“I feel weird,” Damien says suddenly. He’s staring at the water bottle in his lap, long fingers slack on the plastic. “It’s not going away.”

“I know. I’m sorry. When I find Joan we’ll get you back to normal. It’s just temporary.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No. You’re right. I don’t. But I’m not gonna ditch you like this so relax.”

“Why won’t you ditch me?”

“Because I’m not an asshole.”

“Doctor B would tell ya to ditch me.” Damien leans hard on the consonants when he says ‘Doctor B.’ “If she had to choose between you and me –”

“Stop it.” Mark speeds up a little. “That’s not fair and Joanie doesn’t like bullies, but she… she wouldn’t…” He looks out the driver’s side window. “And it doesn’t _matter_ what she thinks because _I_ would feel like an asshole for doing that, Damien. So I’m not going to. Stop trying to get me to feel sorry for you.” Mark straightens the rearview mirror. Not because it needs it, but because he’s restless. “There’s a rest stop in a mile. I’m gonna pull over there and nap for a while.”

“Kay.”

Mark tries to ignore the crawl of goosebumps when Damien responds like that.

“This _is_ temporary.”

“Okay.”

“Damien. Seriously. I don’t _like_ this. I don’t want you to be… like this.”

“That’s, uh, manifestly untrue.”

Mark sighs. “Okay. You got me: My desire to survive is overriding my ideal ethics. Sorry. I _want_ to be in a reality where you’re not a zombie and also would let me go see my sister, but in this reality I think you would tie me up in a trunk if you got your powers back. So I’m not that choked up about it.”

“Okay.”

Mark turns the radio volume back up.

 

* * *

 

Mark manages to get comfortable reclining the driver’s side seat all the way back and closing his eyes. He is aware, faintly, of Damien’s restless dozing a few feet away, of sudden startled surges of… not want exactly, but something. Fear maybe. He keeps jerking awake. Eventually, he pops the passenger door and leaves to use the dimly-lit public restrooms across the parking lot. Mark, left alone in his head, sinks into the warm quiet and –

He wakes up.

Someone is tapping a knuckle against the driver-side door, rapidly, with knuckles, then palm. He sits up. There’s a black woman, pretty, in a baseball cap and a big bomber jacket. A trucker maybe. She taps more furiously.

He rolls down the window. “Uh, hello?”

“Is that your friend?” She points at the restroom building.

Mark sits up. Across the rest stop parking lot, Mark can make out figures. He scrubs his eyes and blinks. Beneath a pool of yellow streetlamp light, a tall, solid man in jeans and a large jacket is talking to Damien. He’s so tall he has to very conspicuously look down to speak with him. Which is weird. Damien’s not _that_ short. Mark register’s it’s weird because the tall man is standing way too close. He’s standing way too close because he has his fist closed around Damien’s right forearm and he’s using it pull the other man toward a blue pick-up.

Mark jolts wide the fuck awake.  

“Oh _Christ_.”

Mark busts out of the car, scrambling a bit, his still noodley legs giving out beneath him as he bursts into an ungainly sprint. The trucker woman follows close behind. Mark notices, belatedly, that she has a long steel baseball bat in her hand and a spike of adrenaline jots his system wide awake.

“Hey!” Mark flail-sprints, gasping unattractively. “Hey! Back off!”

The tall man looks at Mark and the trucker girl with the baseball bat. “Oh, I see.” The man’s voice is… weird. Like there’s reverb in it somewhere. He turns to face Mark, pulling Damien around as an afterthought. “You’re the beneficiary here. My mistake.”

“Look, just… leave him alone, man. You don’t wanna do this. Right?”

“Hmm, that’s not going to work, friend.”

Mark swallows. “Uh, really?”

“Yes, really.” The tall man’s grip on Damien’s forearm tightens and he pulls up, yanking Damien closer so they’re standing side by side and Mark feels viscerally aware of how Damien is not a big dude. Suddenly he seems tiny. Or rather, the man beside him seems fucking enormous, an unmoving shelf of a human being smiling down at him. His teeth are crooked and a little yellow. “I was curious why his thoughts were… bent. Now I see, you’re bending them. You can’t bend _me_ though.”

The woman with the bat says, “That’s enough, asshole. Let the guy go.”

The man smiles. Somehow, his smile seems too big for his skull. “I can tell you don’t like him very much. I could take him off your hands, kid.”

Which is about when Mark realizes he’s being way too flip for what this man is trying to say. Mark glances at the trucker girl with the bat and realizes she is taking things exactly the right amount of serious. He turns back to the stranger and raises one placating hand, lowering his voice.

“Look, you don’t want to do that.”

“I just told you, that won’t work on me.”

“Mark?” Damien lifts his head like he’s been dazed until just then. “What’s… going on?”

“Damien. This asshole’s a telepath or something. Get away from him.”

“Huh?” Damien’s brow knits and he turns, sluggishly, staring up at the tall man like he just noticed him there. Registers the grip on his arm. “What… the fuck?”

The tall man just laughs. “No. You’ll need to do better.”

Then he reaches down, grabs Damien’s other arm and starts pulling him toward the pick-up again. Damien, awake now, immediately panics and starts yelling. Trucker girl doesn’t hesitate. She charges, swinging. The bat hits the tall man right across the face, full power, a killing swing that freezes Mark where he stands, stunned immobile at the cracking ‘whunk’ and ring of the alloy hitting skull. The tall man though… the bat hits him and he doesn’t even move, the length of metal rebounding off his head like she swing into a flesh-padded brick wall.

“Ah! Fuck!” She staggers back, the bat humming with the impact.

“She gets it,” says the tall man. “She’s been on the road long enough to get it.”

Trucker girl looks at Mark. “Do something! I’m not joking. Fight. Right now.”

“Oh. Go away. This is between us boys, yeah? You know you want to get back on the road, right?”

“I…” The trucker girl blinks in confusion. “I do.”

“Well then… go.”

She nods, then looks at Mark, “Stay off the roadsides around here. Keep driving. I’m sorry.”

Mark, dumbfounded, watches her calmly drop the baseball bat and walk toward a giant semi-truck with the words _Bay & Creek Shipping_ on the side. She can’t seem to hear Mark when he calls out, wild, pleading for her to come back, to help him, please, don’t just go. She climbs into her cab and the lights come on. Mark gives up as the wheeze of the hydraulics brakes fills the parking lot.  

“Let’s play a little game,” says the tall man.

“No thanks. I love games. Board games, but I don’t have any of those so let’s not,” says Mark, more than faintly panicked now.

“It’s your only fighting chance, I’m afraid. If I make this a physical contest, I’ll win over both of you. Now, here’s the game: The power at play here seems to be a… projection of want. You want your companion to come with you and I want him to come with me. So let’s you and I each try to get what we want. How about it?”

Mark’s entire nervous system rolls over on itself. “What the _fuck_ does that mean?”

“If you lose,” says the tall man patiently, “then your friend comes with me.”

Damien, hearing this, redoubles his efforts, rearing back from the tall man’s grip and thrashing. But even as he starts to wrench away, the tall man simply pulls forward slightly, twisting Damien’s forearms inward and down and it’s only now that Mark can see the size of the man’s hands are wrong. They are too big for his body. So large they encircle Damien’s forearms from wrist to elbow. His squeezes, slightly, deliberately and Damien _screams_. Damien’s knees hit the concrete. He just keeps screaming.

“Stop it! STOP!” Mark throws both hands up in surrender. “I’ll play! Just stop!”

The tall man releases his hold and Damien collapses forward, drawing his arms in against his stomach, shuddering and hunched through the aftershocks. He’s shaking like he’s been shot. Mark would bet a billion dollars Damien’s never been physically hurt by another human being in his life. Mark wills him with every particle of focus he possesses to _get the fuck up and turn around._

Damien doesn’t react. He just starts hyperventilating.   

“Damien, not to rush you or anything, buddy, but how about you get up and get over here? _Now_?”

“I don’t wanna go with him,” Damien says dully, but rapidly. “I don’t. I don’t wanna go. Mark. Please. I’m sorry. I’m fuckin’ sorry, okay?”

“Let’s see who wants him more,” says the tall man. “Damien, is it? You want to come with me don’t you?”

“No!” Damien goes down, doubled over, head pressed between his palms. “No! God. _Stop_.”

“Damien!” Mark raises his voice, gesturing in big arms swings, trying to get Damien to just look at him, stop freaking out and _focus_. “Damien! Just come over here. Okay? You wanna go home? Let’s go. Right now. Just get up and come _here_.”

The Tall Man says, casually, “I want you to come with _me_.” He smiles. “I want to split your head open.”

Damien stands up, slowly, the way someone stands trying to carry something heavy. Then he starts walking toward the Tall Man.

Mark, for a horrified second, freezes. In that same horrible frozen eternity he projects the immediate future into the now and watches the monster man grab Damien by the back of the neck and smash his fucking skull open like a watermelon on the hood of that shitty pick up. He watches the gory explosion of it – the crack and spill, less blood than you might first expect, then more than he could have ever fathomed. A starburst of red and gray painted up the windshield and –

Mark snaps back. “DAMIEN! GODDAMMIT! DO NOT GO WITH HIM!”

Damien’s entire body convulses like an electric current jumped up his spine, the sole of his left sneaker scraping a stuttered step on the pavement. Then he twists and sprints away from the Tall Man straight at Mark, running faster than Mark might have thought him capable – a wild just raw fucking _terror_ on his face. He gets ten meters. Then he convulses again and hits the ground, falling forward onto his hands and knees, jean’s ripping, palms skidding on the asphalt. He shouts in this strangled way that puts a shunt of terror in Mark’s gut. Sweat runs a visible line down his cheek.

“This is fun,” says the Tall Man.”

“Damien, listen to _me_. Okay? You want to not die? Just _come with me_.”

“I think you want me to snap every bone in your body,” says the Tall Man, his impossible hands impossibly in his pockets. Damien’s gasping now. He’s on his knees, fists pressed white knuckled and bleeding into the top of his thighs. He’s shaking so hard his teeth chatter. “I think you want that more than you’ve ever wanted anything else in your life, right?”

“Damien.” Mark doesn’t remember holding his hands out, but he is now, palms up, arms open. “C’mon. Just… just walk to _me_ , man. _C’mon_.”

“Or come with me,” says the Tall Man, shrugging. “I’ll kill you.”

“ _Mark_!” Damien’s half kneeling, frozen halfway through the motion of getting back up. “Mark, I want to go with him. I wanna –”

The Tall Man laughs. “I want to kill you more than your friend wants you to live obviously.”

Damien squeezes his eyes shut. “No, no, _no_ …”

“Don’t feel bad. It’s more common than you think –”

But Mark is already moving. Mark sees red. Mark sees white and red and Mark is darting forward. He’s grabbing the trucker’s bat from the pavement and he’s sprinting like it’s not the hardest thing he’s ever done. He’s not strong right now. He’s not. His lungs burn, his legs _throb_ , the aching sinew of his formerly comatose body completely ill-equipped to the task of fending off some atypical serial killer, but in this moment: he can’t imagine doing anything else. He lunges forward, grabs Damien’s jacket and yanks him forward, kind of roughly tossing him around behind his knees.

“That won’t help you,” says the Tall Man.

“Fuck you” Mark points with the bat, one fist in Damien’s jacket. “JUST BACK OFF!”

The Tall Man tilts his head. “That’s it. Put your back into it.”

“I’m warning you!”

“How about this? What if I want to kill you if I can’t kill him?”

Mark’s intestinal tracts twists. Damien, sensing this, says, desperately, “Mark, _please_ …”

“I’m not leaving you!” Mark backs away from the Tall Man. “Get up. _Get up, Damien_! That’s it. C’mon.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the Tall Man, keeps the bat up between them. He feels Damien’s hands on his arm, pulling himself upright, gripping his shoulder for support. Mark backs up, slowly. Damien’s breathing like a stabbed man behind him, ragged, painful sucking breathes. “We’re gonna get in the car and go. We’re going. I’m gonna see _my sister_ again. We are going _together_ because that’s what I fucking _want_ you miserable evil fuckface.”

The Tall Man follows them, but slowly, at a stroll. “There you go, kid.”

Mark’s legs bump the front fender of their car. “FUCK YOU!”

“I still think that power is interesting.”

“Mark!” Damien’s in the car already. “Mark, let’s go!”

“I think I could do interesting things,” says the thing that looks like a man but might not be. “I think I’ll come looking for him later. _Eat_ it out of him.”

Damien makes a choked panting noise of terror.

“You’ll never find us!” Mark snarls, getting into the car.

“I think you’re interesting too.” The Tall Man’s tilting his head. He’s tilting it too far, like it’s rotated and hung on broken vertebra. “Always good to see family. You know, like-kind. _Mark_ , right?”

Mark puts the car in gear and guns it out of the parking lot, fishtailing around and hitting 80mph up the ramp, hitting 90, then 100, then 110 and they are screaming up the freeway so fast the whole vehicle yowls and rattles with the velocity. Mark floors it, two-fisted on the steering wheel, staring straight forward – too terrified to look over his shoulder and see, somehow, the Tall Man monkey-clinging to the back of the car or, nightmarishly, chasing them up the road. The fear possesses him physically. Holds him hostage at high speed.

They drive for a long time.

 

* * *

 

They end up at a Denny’s because _of course they do_.

Usually Mark would be opposed to using Damien’s borrowed power to freeload, but three plates deep into a pancake platter makes the crushing darkness of freeway truck stops seem far away. Disproportionate eldritch horrors can’t get you in the middle of a Grand Slam with maple syrup. You can’t be gutted by road-side creatures while you have hot chocolate in hand.

The super nice night manager is operating under this warm cloud of sympathy and good-hearted generosity that keeps refills of warm sweet things continuously coming their way. Mark knows it’s _definitely_ his influence when one of the waitresses gently pats him on the head as though he were the most miserable looking stray dog on the planet.

Which just says _pathetic_ things about his core desires right now.

Damien responds to all this doting by stooping over his coffee in their corner booth. He hasn’t said a word since they got away from the truck stop, only communicated in shakes of the head and vague body language. He’s wearing a hoodie and he’s got the hood up. He looks like a heroin addict that Mark picked up off the street at this point. His hand curled on the table top shakes slightly, even resting. They taped up the scrapes on his palms a while ago but the shake stays.

“You need to eat.”

Damien jerks his head slightly.

“You look really rough.”

Damian looks up from the coffee. His face alone says, _No shit, Sherlock._

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Let’s just sit here in silence except I’m gonna just keep talking because if I don’t I’m gonna think about how this is some Jeepers Creepers shit. I don’t even like scary movies. I like dog movies. Are there are good dog movies? Did good dog movies come out while I was in a coma? God, I’m gonna watch so many dog movies. You seem like a cat person probably, honestly, that’s my guess. No need to confirm or deny. I’m just speculating.”

There’s a single beat of silence.

Damien clears his throat. “He, uh, made me want to die.”

Suddenly the Grand Slam breakfast doesn’t seem like much protection against that crushing dark.

Mark says nothing. Then, softly, “What?”

“That’s what he was doing. I… I could feel how badly he wanted to… and then _I_ wanted to…”

“You don’t have to explain –”

“He didn’t even make me feel sad. Like I didn’t feel _suicidal_ , I was just really… I just really, really wanted smash my own face into the pavement. Like that was a _great_ idea.” Mark says nothing because he doesn’t know what to say, so Damien adds, horribly, quietly, “That’s not really the worst part.”

“How is that _not_ the worst part?”

“I can still kind of feel it.” His eyes tighten a little. “It’s not… compelling anymore, but it’s there. Like when you think about stepping off a tall building or something. You’re not gonna do it, but you… think about it.”

“Intrusive thoughts.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what’s that’s called when you imagine doing something awful, but you’d never do it. Like pink elephants. Don’t think about pink elephants. Don’t think about stepping into oncoming traffic. Intrusive thoughts. They’re really normal. If this… guy put a violent thought in your head then it’s not super weird to get hung up on it. Doesn’t mean he’s still influencing you.” 

“No. Just you.”

Mark reaches for the butter. “I can’t help that, Damien.”

“That’s not bad. Not… right now. It’s fine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Better you than… It’s better. Feels normal now.”

“You can tell when I’m projecting now?”

“Sort of. I can feel… you wanting me to be okay. I think.”

“Is that surprising?”

“Kinda. Yeah.”

“Damien, I told you, I don’t hate you. I just… think you’re messed up.” He fidgets. “And really selfish. And an asshole. And you need a haircut.” He thinks Damien almost smiles, or at least looks not awful for a second so he pushes on. “Also, like, do you know you can wear colors not in the grey-scale?”

Damien sighs. “Doctor B was right.”

Mark blinks. “What?”

“I asked her once,” says Damien, “why she wasn’t afraid of me. You know, because I was threatening her at the time. She told me there were things way scarier than me out there.” He makes a thoughtful little ‘huh’ sound that is 100% disproportionate to their reality. “I just thought she was talking about the AM.”

“Stop talking about threatening my sister, Damien.”

“Sorry.”

Mark eats a few bites of pancake.

“That… guy seemed really interested in your power. I think he was using Class A and C abilities at the same time. That’s not… nobody is a mix. Not even me. I can only use powers one at a time. That thing was strong. And it was telepathic and I think he was a shapeshifting? Like, for a second there it almost seemed like he was mimicking your power. I don’t… I don’t know what just happened. It’s impossible.”

Damien’s staring vaguely into the middle distance at this point.

“Do you think he was like me?”

“What?”

“He was using my power, right? He made me want what he wanted.”

 “I… I don’t think so, Damien.  I thought he was more like me. A mimic. Like, an advanced one. Maybe if I live long enough I’ll be able to keep other people’s powers. I don’t know.” A beat. “I don’t think he was like that because he had _your_ power. If that’s what you’re worried about. He actually seemed like he’d never seen something like it before.”

“Yeah… but he really seemed to, you know, dig it.”

“Powers don’t make people monsters. Choices do.”

“You think I do that though. Choose bad stuff.”

Mark sighs. “Yeah, man, I do. Maybe think a little harder about that. You know, in case you don’t aspire to be a deranged truck stop murderer.” Mark scrubs his face with two palms. “Christ.”

Damien tilts his head. “Are _you_ okay?”

“No, Damien, I’m not okay. I haven’t sleep in days and I fought off some serial killer on a highway.” A beat. “Why aren’t _you_ freaking out more? Why are you so fucking calm about – oh.” Damien, through the forced sieve of telepathic zen, just blinks at him. “Right. Of course. Uh, how about you? Are you okay?”

“My arms are a bit sore.”

“Wait. Did he hurt you?”

“Yes.”

“ _What_? Damien, where?”

Damien calmly rolls his sleeves up over his elbows. In the cheerful Denny’s lamp light, the length of his bare forearms are an ugly rug-burn of purple-red bruising, massive subcutaneous bleeding, vivid and hot to the eyes. Like someone put Damien’s arms in a vice and crushed. He twists his wrists a little just to give all angles, then starts to pull his sleeves down again.

Mark, horrified, blurts, “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I thought you might freak out and try to pull over. I didn’t want that.”

 “Do we need to go to a hospital? Is anything broken? Jeez, I’m sorry. I didn’t even _think_ –”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. Some whackjob tried to Sophie’s Choice us on the road. It wasn’t supposed to _be_ like this. I got _out_. I’m free. This was supposed to be –” Mark stops because the waitress is looking at him from across the room, her arm bent in the attitude of pouring coffee. She’s spilling it on the table, not paying attention. Listening to him. “Sorry. What do _you_ want to do, Damien?

“Let’s just keep driving.”

“Heh. _God_ , I can’t even tell if that’s what you really want or just my fear.”

“I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t would you?” A beat. “ _Fuck_. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. Okay.” Mark runs a hand over his face. “I’ve got some Aspirin in the glovebox or something. You can take that. I can ask for a first aid kit or something…”

There’s a silence.

Then: “Mark, thanks for not leaving me with that guy.”

Mark’s head comes up. “What? I wouldn’t… do that to you.”

“No, I’m not saying you would. I just… that guy said he was going to _kill_ you. You didn’t have to help. _Anyone_ would have run.”

“Well, I didn’t. Not my style.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“We… should box this stuff up and get moving. We have a long drive still.”

“Sure.”

The car smells like breakfast for the next 300 miles. The sun rises in warm beams from beyond the mountains, illuminating the curves of the country side in impossibly beautiful swathes. Mark snaps a picture one-handed with the Polaroid. He doesn’t stop the car though.

 

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> So the hiatus hit and I just needed to fill the time so if our boys were hypothetically accosted by an evil atypical on the freeway, this is what I imagine it to be like. Please comment and tell me about Bright Sessions because I need all the fandom content I can get in this bitty fandom. It also motivates me to write more. You want more? Tell me. I'll do it. I'm jazzed.


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